Academic literature on the topic 'Spanish Lay Piety'

The nature of the Scottish reformation and the Presbyterian settlement that followed meant that from the very onset of Protestantism in Scotland Catholics were forced to look elsewhere for their education. Historians have largely focused on the resulting Scots colleges as individual entities, producing capable and detailed accounts of their educational achievements. This chapter will move beyond this by analyzing how they operated together to pursue the common goal of restoring Catholicism to Scotland and the rest of the Stuart Kingdoms. The conflicts that engulfed Europe from 1618 onwards provided ample opportunity for this newly developed network to lay out an alternative and Catholic vision of the recently formed British-Stuart state. Developing from the Thirty Years’ War the outbreak of the British Civil Wars in 1638 changed this and increasingly emphasised the Stuart outlook of the college network. The politics of the colleges became increasingly bound to the dynasty over the latter part of the century as they became associated with the Jacobite cause. Crucially, the activities of the colleges need to be understood not just from the perspective of individual episodes, or indeed from narrative collegial histories but within an arc that spans both chronologically and geographically the rise and fall of the Stuarts to the British monarchies. The confirmation that domestic Catholic life could continue through the use of missionaries provided a base from which Scots college alumni could build, allowing them to influence not only the piety of Scots Catholics but also, in an indirect way, the government of Scotland. Through an analysis of these networks it becomes apparent that the colleges had a British rather than an exclusively Scots context. The Colleges were undeniably Scottish in terms of personnel and patronage but their outlook was thoroughly British and Irish as their policies were not confined to their home nation but considered also the other Stuart Kingdoms. This chapter will analyse the political activities of the colleges from their beginnings to the mid eighteenth century. It will emphasise their broad British outlook. Throughout their existence the specific aims of those associated with the colleges evolved but the institutions themselves never lost their international perspective. By looking beyond the religious education provided by the colleges it is possible to re-integrate the Scots collegial networks into a broader understanding of the historical experience of Scots, English and Irish Catholics and their relationship with the Stuart dynasty.